This paper seeks to raise awareness among educational researchers and practitioners of some significant weaknesses and internal contradictions of randomised control trials (RCTs). Although critiques throughout the years from education scholars have pointed to the detrimental effects of this experimental approach on education practice and values,…

Restorative practices in schools lack rigorous evaluation studies. As an example of rigorous school-based research, this article describes the first randomized control trial of restorative practices to date, the Study of Restorative Practices. It is a 5-year, cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Restorative Practices Intervention (RPI)…

Challenge the Gap (CtG) is a school collaboration programme designed by Challenge Partners that aims to break the link between disadvantage and attainment. The main components of CtG are: (1) after-school workshops drawing on published research and evidenced practice; (2) focused in-school interventions with a selected cohort of disadvantaged…

Purpose: The past decade has seen considerable debate about how to best evaluate the efficacy of educational improvement initiatives, and members of the educational leadership research community have entered the debate with great energy. Throughout this debate, the use of randomized experiments has been a particularly contentious subject. This…

Writing is an essential skill for participating in modern American society. Although it is crucial to careers and civic engagement, student writing falls far short of national expectations (College Board, 2004; NCES, 2012; Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) seek to increase the rigor of writing instruction…

Studies of small-scale "model" early-childhood programs show that high-quality preschool can have transformative effects on human capital and economic outcomes. Evidence on the Head Start program is more mixed. Inputs and practices vary widely across Head Start centers, however, and little is known about variation in effectiveness within…

Research methods are tools that can be variously applied - depending on the stage of knowledge in a particular area, the type of research question being asked, and the context of the research. The field of program evaluation, critical for social policy development, often has not adequately embraced the full range of methodological tools needed to…